


I’ve been around the world and never in my wildest dreams would I come running home to you

by manubibi



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Future Fic, Lime, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:43:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5985049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manubibi/pseuds/manubibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Haru was never good at that. Goodbyes, that is. Which is why the moment he sees Nagisa standing awkwardly at his doorstep, smiling gently and asking to come, in a less enthusiastic tone than the usual, he hesitates. It would be easier to just pretend he's busy and say Nagisa can't come in, that they'll see each other the next day at the airport, but there is too much in the small space between them to do that. He would not even accept that from himself. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ve been around the world and never in my wildest dreams would I come running home to you

Back when he was a child, there was a kind, quiet family living in his neighborhood. They were all quite normal, sometimes he saw his mom exchange greetings and pleasantries with the adults. There were also a boy and a girl in the family, twins. They would often play with him when their parents were out and his mom offered to keep an eye on them. He never cared much, they were just kids like him. They were not Makoto, but they kept him entertained enough to make him look at them and make him listen to their childish bragging or make him play their games. They thought he was cool, sometimes they even dragged their mother to his swimming races. That family was there, in the background, being kind to him. The kids did not isolate him, even though at times he was hard to approach, on the contrary they seemed to have fun around him.   
Then they moved out north because of their father's job. He had grown fond of them, but the day they left, even though they kept waiting until the last moment, he shut himself in his room playing a videogame and ignoring their calls from the outside or his mom's. Eventually, she had to apologize to their parents and say Haru said goodbye and wished them good luck.  
  
Haru was never good at that. Goodbyes, that is. Which is why the moment he sees Nagisa standing awkwardly at his doorstep, smiling gently and asking to come, in a less enthusiastic tone than the usual, he hesitates. It would be easier to just pretend he's busy and say Nagisa can't come in, that they'll see each other the next day at the airport, but there is too much in the small space between them to do that. _He_ would not even accept that from himself.   
He steps aside then, and just as he sort of foretold, they both stand there for a few moments, aware of each other's feelings. Just as usual, Nagisa breaks it though, taking his shoes off and announcing himself before he trots over to the kotatsu and slips his legs under it, with a content hum.   
"I came to say bye," he states, obviously, crossing his legs. "Tomorrow I cannot be there."  
"Why?" Haru asks, a little taken aback, but sits near him anyway. His hand raises hesitantly, but then drops back on his own knee.  
"I'm out with my family and they won't let me stay. They say I need to redo my wardrobe for university. What's wrong with my clothes anyway?" He complains with a pout, and yet he lacks his usual vivacity.   
"Your clothes are too flashy," Haruka replies, looking down at them. As usual, Nagisa is all fizzy colors, he makes himself noticed. And that is not grown up-like. He should melt down and join the mold like all the other adults.  
"You think so too?" Nagisa replies, his voice low and a bit disappointed.  
"They're too flashy for uni, anyway. I like them though," Haru corrects himself, with a pleased glimmer in his eyes when he realizes he's said the right thing... and then his expression goes back to colorless, because _he's_ the one about to leave now.   
"Ah! Really?" Nagisa squeaks with a big grin, wrapping his arms around Haruka's own as if he was huge and Nagisa too tiny to hug him with one arm. "That's good. If Haru-chan likes it, then it's okay."  
Silence drops on them again and they let it. It's not an awkward, uncomfortable kind of silence. Sadness doesn't need tears and scenes.   
"Hey, Haru-chan. Is this the end of us then?" Nagisa asks eventually, soft and serious, referring to their dates and sex and all the things they told each other or postulated even though Nagisa won't need much guessing, he'll confess things straightforward.   
"I guess," Haruka replies in a flat, indifferent tone.  
"I see," Nagisa hums in a faint murmur that tries to imitate it, but fails.   
  
Haruka is not good with goodbyes. He's not good at hiding while saying: "take care, good luck, and I'll see you sometime, yeah?"   
So his fingers move and slip through the messy, blond strands of hair he likes petting so much when Nagisa is tired and leans his head on Haruka's lap. Nagisa's eyes flick over to his own, and a little smile curls his lips upwards in a faint smile while they lean towards each other to share a long, humming kiss. Because Nagisa cannot help chattering, even in the middle of making out he could not stop expressing things. His way of contributing is overwhelming, warm, alive. Haruka listens to all of it.   
"Do you want to do it?" Nagisa asks, interrupting a kiss when one of Haruka's hands slips under his striped tee as they both lie, the former with his body half under the tonkatsu's warmth, the latter half on top of him in a disorderly and a bit uncomfortable pose.   
"Don't you want to?"  
"No, I do. Lube and condoms?"  
"Too much effort."  
Nagisa smiles, trustful, with his fingertips brushing against Haruka's cheek.   
"That is so like Haru-chan."  
"I don't want to do it like that anyway," Haruka adds, his fingers now reaching below Nagisa's trackpants' waistband to touch the other, warm between his thighs. Nagisa's hips jolt once but as he flushes he also tilts his head.   
"How then?"  
Haruka looks down at his pink blushing face, with a bit of glittering in his eyes. His pupils are dilated and his lashes shyly flutter. He seems to reply to himself when his hand joins Haruka's between his own legs, with a few little but tense gasps, working himself up. Haruka stops watching the small, intimate reactions his boyfriend is showing only to get him out from under the kotatsu - he receives a whine for that - and drag his lips down from Nagisa's plump ones to touch briefly across his clothed chest and stomach, before finally enveloping his hot, wet mouth around him. Kissing him like this is his goodbye, it is an awkward way to do it but anything else would be even more. He only looks up only once, just to make sure he is not doing it wrong. The other replies with soft, choked out moans, and pressing the back of his hand against his open mouth seems successful in muffling the words that would be superfluous anyway.  
  
"I'll miss you," Nagisa says lying with his head on Haruka's stomach, and the other's fingers threading gently through his hair as they both look to the empty ceiling.  
Haruka keeps silent: saying 'I'll miss you too' would be unnecessary and lead to a conversation he does not feel like having. Nagisa knows anyway.   
  
\----  
  
"Haru! Hi! You know who I saw the other day?" His mother asks while Haru is on the phone, commuting on the train which speeds across the rain in the chaotic city, directed to the quiet district he lives in to go rest his body after training hard.    
"Who?," Haruka replies, lethargic. Coming out of the water does leave him like that sometimes, especially when it rains, outside and the blankets felt so good to be wrapped up in, in the morning.  
"The Uedas! They moved back to Iwatobi, now he's working at the Mitsubishi Bank and she's back to teaching in Sano, I told them about you! We'll all be watching your races on tv, so work hard and give it your all!" She replies, cheerfully, with so much pride in her voice.  
"Ueda... ah," he hums, nodding. "I see. Say hi to them from me."   
"Already did. Manato and Momoka said hi to you as well. Remember them?" She asks then.  
Only faded memories are left, but he does recollect a small hat with some anime picture printed on it that the twins would often fight over. Funny what minds selectively choose to keep. And then that thought follows up with a spare swimsuit from long ago. _Why did I think about that?_ He asks himself with his heart hopping softly and a grimace curling his lips.   
"Yeah, I do."  
"They're in college now, in Tottori, so they were here for the weekend. Maybe you should pop back here and visit! Remember to bring something back. And take care. Well, it's late. I'm making dinner, make sure to eat enough! Practice sounds hard."  
"I will," Haruka replies looking outside while the raindrops drag themselves down, seeming to be tired just like him.   
"I'm proud of you."  
"Thanks."  
Once the call is over he leans his forehead against the glass as he stands next to the door. Standing on a soft and monotonous rattling sound, surrounded by a bit of chatter and the usual smell of the insides of a public train. The sky is darkening, and in the back of his mind he recalls, his mackerel is almost finishing. He'll go grocery shopping at the usual place then.  
  
He wobbles back home more and more tired as the day turns to a dark evening, the clouds grey and blue in the sky and it's cold, his fingers hurt. They feel like they might drop off his hand, but he finally gets to the nice building he lives in, with a naked garden surrounding it as it is too soon for the grass to grow.   
And sitting on the building's steps, there's Nagisa. Haru freezes the moment he recognizes the blond curls under a red wool hat. His hands unclench, and his bags fall down on the ground, startling the other.  
"Ah!" Nagisa squeals, shoving the cellphone he was looking down at in his pocket and jumping up on his feet. "Hello, Haru-chan!" He chirps, trotting over and hugging Haruka. All of a sudden it's not so cold anymore.  
"What are you doing here?" Haruka asks, dumbfounded. Of course Nagisa would be somewhere else than Iwatobi, since he planned to go to university. But Nagisa interpreted the question differently.  
"I heard from Mako-chan and asked him where you live and I came here to wait for you. I missed you!" Nagisa chatters while grabbing Haruka's hand with both of his own. "How are you?"  
"I'm fine," Haruka replies, still surprised. He looks down at his hand now trapped, and then at his groceries scattered. As he crouches Nagisa joins him, helping to put them back in.   
"Sorry about not warning, I sort of wanted to surprise you!" Nagisa says with a big grin. "Mackerel...? You didn't change at all, Haru-chan!" He adds, and giggles gently while throwing the fish inside the bag.   
Haruka glances over at him a few times, registering how Nagisa's face became a bit sharper in its shape, but his eyes are still the same, open wide as if he was in constant awe of the world, his smile looking more or less the same as usual. And his clothing style does not seem to have mutated much either.  
"You didn't change your wardrobe after all," Haruka comments, before picking up the bags and he leads the way to unlock the door, letting Nagisa in first.   
"Huh?" Nagisa looks down at his thick jacket and colorful sweatshirt. "Ah! Well, my mom wanted me to dress all dark and 'sober'," he replied, grinning. "So I was like, to hell with that. I'm going to dress however I want."  
He did not fit the mold, in the end. That thought seems to please Haruka.  
Nagisa looks around for a few seconds, noticing with surprise how the general pattern in the flat's decoration is not water. It is quite generic, except a few wooden sculptures that, Nagisa assumes, Haru made himself.   
"Nice place," he comments, while Haru puts the groceries away quickly, not losing a chance to throw some looks Nagisa's way, still mostly surprised that he's there at all.   
"Thanks," Haruka replies, and then decides to gently intertwine his fingers with Nagisa's. "And welcome back."  
"Huh?"  
"I mean, welcome back as in..." _What did I mean?_ "Ah, nevermind."  
"No, tell me, Haru-chan!" Nagisa protests, grinning even wider. "Are you happy to see me?"  
"I am, actually," Haru replies, his eyes smiling as well.   
Nagisa seems to be pleased with the answer, as his gaze lowers and his cheeks turn just slightly pinker.   
  
Dinner is delicious, Nagisa decides after he invited himself to eat together, and notices how Haruka clearly improved his already good cooking. "After all you live alone, some company can't hurt!" He said, and then joked about snatching free food.   
"Do you still eat a lot of mackerel?" He asks, once his dish is wiped clean off all the food on it.   
"Always," Haruka replies giving the other a slight smile. "So none of us changed that much."  
"No, we didn't, did we? It's like we're back in high school!" Nagisa chirps with some excited nostalgia. "Ah, you know... I do happen to see some of your races! You're still so fast and beautiful in the water!" He adds with an old glimmer of admiration and his voice pitching up louder.   
Haruka does not reply, but he turns his gaze down at his lap, pensive. Nagisa laughs softly, letting the silence settle on them for a while, calm.   
  
"I'm sorry about leaving you behind," Haruka finally murmurs, once Nagisa sits on his sofa after eating, and they keep close, leaned one against the other.  
"It couldn't be helped," Nagisa replies softly looking at him. "You had to pursue your dream, I had to do my third year of school. And I would have hated a long-distance relationship. I need to touch people. I expected a break-up."   
Haruka nods, slowly relieved by the calm Nagisa is irradiating now.   
"Now that we both live close, I'd like to try catching back up with all of it," Nagisa adds though, in a simple tone that gently forces so many feelings and complications and things left unsaid to rise from the grave, but then puts them to sleep, makes so much paranoia about the whole thing, invisible until then, become a bit lighter in the room.   
Haruka turns his blue eyes at him with a bit of a shocked expression, though.  
"Would you?" He asks, taken aback. He really did not expect something like that so out of the blue.  
Nagisa scratches his head, but then nods. "I thought about you a lot, Haru-chan! After all, you were my first, no?"  
"You were my first too. My first _boy_ , anyway," he replies, just glancing over at Nagisa with a small flush.   
"Oh, you had girlfriends too? Really? Tell me everything!" The other replies, leaning closer.   
"Did you?"  
Nagisa hums nodding. "I was clearly too hung up on a _certain_ guy, though," he whispers, in a conspiring tone, blushing only a little and smiling.   
 _You don't need to flirt if this is still your idea of flirting_ , Haruka thinks rolling his eyes briefly before grasping on the armrest to gather courage and kissing Nagisa as if it was the most obvious and natural thing to do despite their status as exes. Nagisa blinks genuinely surprised with his cheeks turning bright red before pulling himself back.   
"Wait, did you actually take me up on what I said?" Nagisa asks incredulous.   
"Well, yeah," Haruka replies with a frown, now confused by that response. "Were you kidding?"  
"Really?!" Nagisa squeals with his eyes open wide. "Really really?!?"   
That is so confusing and funny at the same time, Nagisa's shocked face, as if he was expecting a no or something snarky to reject him.   
"But your career...!" The younger protests, as he jumps on his feet, now acting contradictorily to his own idea.   
"I'll handle my career myself," Haruka replies looking at him amused and nodding, stubborn.   
"But it would be a scandal!" The other continues, although the beginning of a smile can be spied on his lips, and sugary laughter seems to mix with his voice.  
"Like I care for what people say. My job is _swimming_ ," Haruka retorts, weirdly enjoying the weird limbo the conversation they are having ended up in.   
Nagisa pauses, letting silence help him process the reply, and then smiles wide, with a nod.   
"Do you want to fool around then?" Nagisa asks, way too simply, rushing, without any hesitation or forethought. The smile in Haruka's face confirms that in this sense he did not change in that way either.  
"I thought you'd be more... modest," blue eyes scan Nagisa's bizzarrely clothed figure as Haruka's words slide out of his lips with a slower, uncertain pace.   
"You mean boring?" Nagisa scoffs while finally stepping closer.   
 _This is too easy. Everything's forgotten? No awkwardness?_ Haruka wonders, sensing Nagisa's fingers first brush on his cheeks roughened up by a veil of beard, and then tread down his shirt, stopping at the hips.   
"Are you sure it's okay?" He asks then, grabbing them and searching for Nagisa's eyes. Inside them there is no anger or betrayal.  
"It is, I promise," Nagisa replies, smiling quietly. "I just missed you too much."  
  
"Haru-chan..." Nagisa whines, grasping tight on the fitted sheet, harpoons on it, even, with his slender fingers. His naked body tenses up in successive waves, his back arching and head lulling forward with each gentle but firm thrust inside him.   
Haruka missed that inflexion to Nagisa's voice, the way it sounds desperate, totally different from the childish tone that even as that voice matured remained anyway. His tone is lower, yet still recognizable.   
His back muscles contract and Haru can see, through the daze provoked by Nagisa's small body squelching around him, he kept fit and toned, maybe there is just a little more fat around his hips, but it only looks like a softer body, nice to the touch. And Haru does touch him and tease him with his hands, gently like when he draws circles on the surface of the water. Slowly, to make each moan stretch in the air and reach his ears. The wet, slightly popping sounds of Haruka's lips on Nagisa's back make the latter shiver at times, more and more turned on each time the pressure inside of him increases.  
"Haru-chan," he calls again, tangles his fingers with the other male's, his body moving of its own accord now that the pressure in his lower body seems to only be able to grow. The thought that _Haru-chan, Haru-chan is with me_ circles around his head, as if he had not been aware of it before. The boy he'd cried in secret over, the day he'd left. Nagisa didn't tell, but he did not want to be there and look at Haru turn around and walk away, not a second time.  
"So, I guess that was hello, and welcome back... in my life, or something," he hums while catching his breath with a widening grin.   
"Hello..." Haruka repeats softly, holding the smaller male in his arms as they curl up one into the other, no matter that the sheets are dirty.   
"Hello, and feel free to stay however much you want," Nagisa specifies in a whisper and with a hidden, hopeful nibble on his lip while his eyes close in the darkness that by now descended completely. Haruka cannot see it. He says nothing but just holds him tighter, and muses over how easily all seemed to be fixed and alright.   
"Goodnight," he finally murmurs, receiving a hum as a reply.  
Haruka cannot do goodbyes, he'll end up hiding from them. But a _hello, goodnight, welcome back_... that he can do.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Mizzy, as a "get well soon" sort of gift ^^ I'm not sure how valid it is, but well, it's a thought. I had fun writing it in the end, and I hope Haru doesn't sound bad, I know you care for ICness and he's a hard character to write but... eh, I tried! So yeah, I hope it's welcome :D   
> (and no I can't make things end badly for them, it's just... I can't sorry ;A;)
> 
> Yell at me at tenitchyfingers @ tumblr if you want


End file.
